Hate crimes against Muslims soared after Sept. 11, according to an FBI report released Monday that also shows that most hate offenses in 2001 were committed against African Americans.

The FBI's annual statistical report showed that hate crimes in the United States increased 21 percent from 8,063 in 2000 to 9,730 in 2001. Most of last year's hate crimes were motivated by racial bias (45 percent), followed by biases against ethnicity or national origin (22 percent), religion (19 percent), sexual orientation (14 percent) and disability (0.3 percent).

The most dramatic change noted by the report was a more than 1,600 percent increase in reported hate crimes against Muslims -- a jump from 28 hate incidents in 2000 to 481 last year.

The report, however, showed that African Americans -- with 3,700 victims of hate crimes counted in 2001 -- were by far the largest group of victims, as they have been since the FBI began gathering hate crime statistics from local law enforcement in 1992. Hate crimes against African Americans rose slightly, from 2,884 incidents in 2000 to 2,899 incidents in 2001.

"One would hope that in the year 2002 there would be fewer victims of hate crimes regardless of race and ethnicity," said John White, a spokesman for the NAACP. "Because so much progress has been made by African Americans, people tend to forget that these things still exist. This kind of report indicates that unfortunately there is still a need for the NAACP and groups like us."

After African Americans, the most victimized groups included Jews (1,196 victims), gay men (1,152 victims), whites (1,065 victims) and persons of ethnic and national origins who are not white, black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander or Native American (1,822 victims).

The report also showed that 68 percent of hate crimes were committed against people and 32 percent against property.

10 HATE-CRIME MURDERS

Ten of the hate crime victims in 2001 were murdered, according to the report. Nine of the murders were motivated by racial or ethnic hate -- three victims were African American, two were Latino, one was categorized as Asian or Pacific Islander, and the other three were listed as "other." One murder was motivated by anti-gay bias, the report said.

There were no slayings of Muslims reported. The report listed intimidation as the most common hate crime against Muslims last year, with 296 incidents. There also were 27 incidents of aggravated assault and 66 incidents of simple assault against Muslims, the report said.

The report also showed that white people were the most common offenders in hate crimes -- 65.5 percent -- followed by African Americans at 20.4 percent. In 8 percent of the cases, the races and ethnicities of the offenders were unknown.

California agencies reported 2,246 hate crime incidents in 2001, up from 1, 943 in 2000. Last year, 164 incidents were reported in San Francisco and six in Oakland. Contra Costa County reported 10 incidents.

To be classified a hate crime, an incident must be motivated at least in part by bias, and evidence must support that. A hate crime also cannot merely be hate speech, such as the use of a racial epithet. There must be at least intimidation involved. The hate speech, however, can be the evidence that police need to classify an assault or other incident as a hate crime.

Some increases may be because of more reporting by individuals and law enforcement agencies, according to the report. But the statistics do not include all hate crimes because some law enforcement agencies are still not reporting the data.

SEPT. 11 ATTACKS BLAMED

Anti-Muslim incidents were previously the second least reported, but in 2001, "presumably as a result of the heinous incidents that occurred on Sept. 11," they became the second-highest among religious-biased incidents, second only to 1,043 anti-Jewish incidents, according to the report.

The issue of hate crimes against Muslims has gotten a lot of media attention since the terrorist attacks, and the dramatic rise in numbers was little surprise to Maha ElGenaidi, executive director of the Islamic Network Group in San Jose.

"This has been the pattern for a very long time," ElGenaidi said. "We witnessed the same thing after the Oklahoma bombing, after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and after the Persian Gulf War. I am very glad that finally Americans at large are beginning to recognize this as a pattern and a problem that we need to address."

ElGenaidi said she believed the numbers were actually higher than in the FBI report because many Muslims do not report the crimes to authorities.

She has not been a victim but goes out of her way to be extra friendly and cautious wherever she is, she said. The Islamic community is trying to counter the stereotypes of Muslims through education and work with law enforcement agencies.

MEDIA, POLITICIANS BLAMED

Ebrahim Nana, a member of the board of directors for mosques in Mill Valley and San Francisco, said Americans had been whipped into a hateful frenzy by the media and politicians.

"The words 'extremists' and 'terrorists' and 'Islam' all seem to be used interchangeably," he said.

When one Muslim man was making a special rice mixture in his backyard, his neighbors called police to report that he was mixing some sort of chemical concoction, Nana said.

Some Muslims are so afraid that they have gone as far as changing their names, like from Mohammad to Mo or from Ali to Al, to fit in and not attract attention, he said.

"People have become more careful that whatever they are doing is not misconstrued to be a threat to anybody," Nana said.